Haunted Halo
by Electromotive Force
Summary: Jake and Eve. Ghost chasers. It's a hard-earned living and a lonely life. Overwhelming skepticism of a cynical majority always had them striving to avoid attention and scrape by largely unnoticed. By chance, the opportunity of a lifetime is stumbled upon, a way to end their struggle forever. Little did they know, much more than their struggle would end.
1. Prologue

"Now you die, human. Slowly and with pain."

The initial fright and shock of the encounter with the alien had left me. The pain was as real as the being that had just mortally wounded me.

Now, all that remained was the sting of the blade and the sinking realization that I was soon to be dead. The two forces seemed to war with each other, my mind playing the mediator between them. A sliver of anger and a notion of revenge panged from within, but I was crippled with no hope of defense, much less offense. I looked upward then. Its form towered over my own. It lingered above me for a moment so that its four jaws could spread wide, bearing the inner teeth in what I assumed was its expression of a grin.

Already, the ambience seemed to dim, the foreboding of my passage beyond this existence. I lay on the ground, slowly bleeding from the inside as it stepped over me and paced away with a hearty roar that could almost pass for a scathing laugh.

"Warriors!" It shouted, the voice fading as it ran toward its allies. "Intruder-humans have entered the sacred shrine! Search until you find no others!"

Voices carried on far away, faint and incomprehensible. In a few seconds, it was silent.

The pain was too intense to notice anything else. I tried not to move. The more I focused my thought on the pain, the worse it felt. Moving made it that much worse. What I'd done to deserve this sort of death, I couldn't know. All I knew for certain this moment was that I had mere minutes remaining here on this far away world.

At least I had Eve in my final hour.

I glanced her direction a few arm length's away. She'd meet an exact fate. She met my gaze and offered a weary smile. Her upper body had been gouged out much like mine was. My heart could no longer function correctly and her lungs were surely destroyed. We were both done for.

I wasn't sure if any of this was avoidable. It was our fate, it seemed. In my last moments, all I could do was remember how we got here.

And it's true, what they say…

My life flashed before my eyes.


	2. This House is Not Your Home

__Clearing out an entire town is never a one-day affair. _It's the worst thing you'll ever see in this line of work, but they're manageable if you know what you're doing and you don't give up. Avoid bringing too much attention to yourself, though. You'll get locked up that way, and probably for the rest of your life.___

_**This House is Not Your Home**_

She was right. They didn't understand. And people feared what they didn't understand.

Eve told me about outbreak scenarios one year and six months after she brought me aboard, when she determined I was ready to assist her—in some capacity—with the larger jobs. I was always recalling Eve's advice on things, always taking her word at face value. So far, she'd never been wrong. I had a hunch it would stay that way when dealing in these matters.

A single dwelling thankfully _is _a one-day affair, but just about an all-day affair by the same token. We only had this one job lined up for the entire week. Work was sparse lately. To the Callers, as we sometimes referred to them, our presence here was a Godsend. Hardly anyone believed in ghosts. It was foolishness, worthy of mockery. Yet, here we were, requested by two non-believers. To us, it was just part of our routine, carrying on in what we did like normal. Today was going to be an easy day. Just an ordinary house call.

An outbreak was not my cup 'o tea. They were biblical in comparison to the routine gig such as this. You actually had to get right into the thick of it, _interact _with them, and somehow make it go away once you fully understood the full nature of the beast. Obviously, the more entities were involved the more difficult it became. In the past, I wished that more people were like us, that they could see for themselves this other world denied to their eyes. But the first time I saw a town get infiltrated with her that long time ago, I began to wish this ability of Sight on nobody. It was the first time I ever thought about abandoning Eve before the show had gotten interesting. The Oblivious spirits were the worst kind: the ones who didn't know they were already dead.

The prelude to the first 'raid' I took part in wasn't particularly frightening for someone like me. In fact, I didn't feel threatened in the least by what I saw at first. It began as any one of countless operations began: The Watcher.

The lone apparition.

_It happens at a precise moment in the day, and _only _in that moment. That's the one thing that frustrates me about this kind of work. You have to wake up so God-damned early all the time._

Eve wasn't a morning person. I knew that from the start. I once thought her a primmdonna with the way she complained about the little things, how she never aided me in the chores she tasked me with. I once thought she somehow placed herself above others, but she was truly all business when the going got tough. Many Ghost Chasers didn't even know that every dwelling has a tenant spirit watching over it, but she figured it out a long time ago. Took a few jobs with her for me to see it for myself, but as usual she was correct. It was always the elder female, the first one to take up residence in the area. You had to be excruciatingly observant to know this. Eve was this. I considered myself one of the lucky ones with Sight to be mentored by her, coarse and abrasive as she was.

Almost every time, the Watchers were harmless. The good ones. Caretakers in a weird, befitting way. Of course, there were many types of Watchers. Some had no real-world structures to lay claim to. I'd seen some that strolled parks and beaches. Some dwelled in mountainous caves as if hibernating away from the world. The Watcher's appearance was only possible during the first light of dawn, when most of the living were still wading through the thickets of their nightmares. You could set your watch by this phenomenon. Something about the angle of incidence photons struck the world at. And in accordance with some unestablished, supernatural law, she was right on time.

"It's coming up on zero-five." Eve whispered, still wearing that typical, everyday expression. It was one of boredom, just like the routine we'd settled into. Just another job, nothing special.

With a slow wave of her hand, she swept strands of her thick, red hair out of the way of her sight, then stifled a yawn. Tired and sapped as she was, Eve was a warrior who never gave up. She'd been waiting for the days when she could be at the employ of more and more affluent clients. And I knew when that day came, she was gone. She'd move on. We'd part ways and she'd go solo. She invested time in prepping me for greater and greater encounters—but the flow of credit these days was weak. We needed this small-time gig just to scrape by. I knew something big was on the horizon, though. I already considered her the virtuoso in our sphere, but still I could sense a catch in her voice as if she had only recently turned novice, like an audible spike of adrenaline running through those hardened veins and steely nerves as she stirred a little in her seat and barked, "Java."

I sighed and complied, reaching forward and removing Eve's coffee from the console's cupholder. I'd been relegated to all kinds of additional duties in her service. I guess that's the price of an education.

I handed the steaming mug to her without glance, then immediately went back to clutching myself in the bitter cold. She'd insisted we park outside with the windows down. I wasn't prepared for that. I didn't bring a jacket along. I was somehow unable to cope with the climate as well as she was. Not that the temperature itself was particularly unbearable, it was the humidity and those damned gusts that seemed to enter my window at just the right angle. The cold, wet drafts cut right into my layers of clothing and down to the hollow of my bones.

At least she hadn't lost her spark on jobs. At least she had something to be observed by someone like me who was still learning and absorbing.

"Alright, Jake, time for Magic Hour."

When the Watchers told their story to those able and willing to witness it.

That's why it always took time and a considerable effort to relieve an entire town of problems. One house a day was the usual pace for us. It limited our daily uptake, but it also made for a steady and predictable flow of income that would be sustainable and prevent us from going on a massive spending binge with our winnings.

I sat straighter, glanced over to Eve and found she'd already been directing rigid attention towards the house herself, only absentmindedly raising the coffee to her mouth for a petite sip. She never lost visual control. She was a hawk on the job, always focused razor-sharp. Per Eve's instructions, the living occupants opened the garage door for us at exactly the right time. The hinged, metallic panels began to rise, gradually folding before fully retracting into the ceiling. There, a completely empty room lied just a hundred meters before us. That was our queue to break out the binoculars. I unlimbered mine and she unlimbered hers, and we peered into the shadowy distance of the dark space. They'd been rather skeptical when they first contacted us a week ago, but their state of fear and confusion throughout recent days was enough motivation for them to at least hear us out. We explained as best we could what we thought was happening. They bought it, strangely. Usually, it took more convincing, but they were already unnerved and begged for some kind of release. With the credit we were asking, the well-endowed newly-weds accepted the offer without bargain. Appeasing the living was such easy money as long as they succumbed to their own fears—

—Eve and I had always believed.

Per our instructions, the owners moved all earthly possessions from the garage so we could get a good look inward, though we had a very good idea of what we'd see here and now. The only thing still visible was a refrigerator they said couldn't be moved. Their living room was already packed full to the ceiling. We said we'd work around it if we had to venture inside for inspection, no big deal.

I was on Watch-the-Watcher duty this time, a promotion from Eve. At once, it materialized.

This was my second one I'd ever seen, and she was beautiful. Middle-aged with fair skin, long and flowing brown hair that swept down to her middle back. The clothing she wore depicted her era of life. I'd poured through enough history books to nail down little details like that, a tenet which Eve still touts on to this day.

_Even the minutest of details can help you._

If only more people believed us, we'd solve centuries-old murder cases.

_Whatever, _I usually thought. As long as we get paid and we quiet down the spirits, it's all the same. Win-win.

Often or not, it was just irrelevant, gee-whiz tidbits that I was tasked at sifting out for her. The errand-boy apprentice. That was what I was relegated to. But today was slightly different. She'd let me go inside with her on this one for some reason. I sensed she trusted my abilities more and more with each passing month and the many jobs therein. It wouldn't be long until I was ready to take a lead of my own, go solo. We could split up and cover twice as much ground and make good progress on Earth, rake in twice as much money. Maybe in a few years I'd branch off from her and start my own business on some other colony, be a world traveler. Flee her roost. I had suspicion that was always her intent some day. I had also suspected she taught me her craft out of kindness, with the inner need to be able to relate with someone else. Ghost chasing is a lonely life. It's rare to find understanding and common ground being yourself. Arkham was looking more and more like my world of choosing if I could ever muster the credit to venture beyond Earth.

I focused in on the Watcher. She was definitely pre-Renaissance with the way she was dressed and kempt, maybe royalty, a King's wife or mistress with her stunning beauty. I couldn't help but begin to wonder why she would have perished at such a relatively young age. Then again, life-expectancy in those ages was relatively short as well. She moved with the grace of an artist's brushstroke. Her step was light and fluid. Those slender, porcelain arms glided in front of her with every opposing stride as she gaited to the boundary of her 'residence', gazing out into the distance. The pale, waking dawn this side of the world was dimmer than she was.

At a few paces out, she looked directly at us, smiled for a fleeting moment, then walked back the way she came. She was gone.

"Did you time it?" Eve asked, slowly stowing away her binoculars. "Well, did you?"

I didn't. I had been a little too distracted. "Um—"

"—You've got to pay more attention to these things, Jake. I've told you."

"Sorry, I zoned out there. It won't happen again."

"Shall I arrange a date with her for you after we're done here? Jeez."

She shook her head at me and started up the car, then turned on the heater and opened her door. She slammed it shut as emphasis once she dismounted. "_Just_…watch the damned car. And you'd better not be snoozing when I get back."

A demotion.

Eve walked over the morning dew towards the house, retrieving a hand-held radio from her coat. Her voice steadily faded as she transmitted, "It's over now. You can close your garage door. I'm coming inside."

_Idiot, _I thought.

Then again, neither of us were the brightest bulbs in the box. We'd both failed grade school, and at present she left the damned windows open while the vents heated up the outside world.

Looking back, I was undeniably embarrassed and certainly frustrated for not remembering to time our encounter with the Watcher. _Six seconds._

If a Watcher greeted you for six seconds or longer, you could move on. The area was safe and the racket that plagued the Dim-Wits would soon subside, probably never to recur. She never told me why it was six seconds and I don't' think she knew the reason either. That's just what it was, tried and true. That part of the process wasn't established by some elusive cult or some ridiculed community of practice or a fucking Ouija board; that was Eve's observations after two decades of this stuff. _Anything less than six seconds means problems._

_Big problems._

Usually, bad encounters with Watchers lasted a lot less than six seconds, and I was reasonably sure that this one was on the safe side. She—the spirit—didn't seem riled up or in a hurry. On the other hand, the real-world tenants did mention that the noises in their house had persisted for two weeks now with regularity, which meant this wasn't a fluke. While not amounting to the kind of spiritual unrest as we'd witnessed in times before, it was still cause for concern.

* * *

><p>She was in there quite a while. What was she doing?<p>

I was left behind as punishment while she handled everything. More learning opportunities I was missing out on. In my self-loathing, I was starting to bore.

I'd known Eve long enough to know when to push her buttons and still get away with it. On the job, she was focused, purely customer-oriented and a true professional. If I did something wrong or did something to annoy her, the retribution was swift, severe, but it was forgotten three minutes later. So, I climbed out of the jeep and made for the house.

At first, Eve was oblivious to my presence. While she jotted down some notes in her data tablet, the Watcher came back, startling me. Eve was unperturbed as she stowed away her device and went back into observation mode, keenly on-target.

"Hello." Eve offered curtly as if speaking neighborly with someone known to her.

"Oh, thank goodness." The woman said. "I thought I was alone all this time. Where is Henry? Have you seen him? I heard he was traveling here from the high court. So many of you are dressed strangely. Of what realm are you from?"

"Henry?"

"Yes, King Henry."

Eve then smirked at me, then turned back to her. "I think Henry is gone. No more worries, dear. Your head is safe."

The woman gave Eve a contented smile, then walked away straight toward a wall. Before she disappeared completely, Eve acted fast, unlimbered an ancient Polaroid camera dangling from a lanyard around her neck and snapped a photo. As the flash exposed all surfaces of the dark space, the resultant image was almost instantaneously ejected out of a port aboard the ancient technology. Why she insisted on lugging that heavy burden around her neck was beyond me. Maybe a novelty fetish of hers. Far more compact and efficient devices were available for purchase. The red lines imprinted around her skin were painful just to look at, and I could see her upper vertebrae crying for relief the way her shoulders arched forward all the time. I never asked her why, just figured she had her ways about her. Not like she'd listen to me anyways. She was not your typical girl. Yes, she could clean up well and have some degree of charm to her, but by the same token her strong-will was a downer most of the time.

She began fanning out the material immediately after she grasped it from the device's ejection port.

In another minute, she sighed and threw it to the ground.

"No good?" I asked.

"Not this time. One of these days I'll capture one at just the right angle and then maybe we can score big and forget all this day-to-day hustle, and just chill.

She spoke as though we were a full-fledged team, almost like family. But I knew the time was drawing near when she'd cut me loose. She was teaching me everything she knew, maybe out of common ground if anything. Again, we're a lonely bunch. Normal interaction with people is rare. We spend more time looking at dead things.

"Maybe I need a brighter flash and a bigger lense." Eve whispered, seemingly to herself.

Under the perfect and rarest circumstances, charged particles from a variety of sources could strike a spirit's outlines and a recording device of specific attribute could potentially capture them. That was the theory. We'd seen examples before from others that Eve still kept in contact with, but so far no one had a really compelling find with which to present to people outside of our 'circle'. Some postulated that charged-coupled devices and CMOS sensors in conventional cameras could pick up fractions of those particle collisions if aimed correctly—which usually meant perfectly—which further meant it was damned near-impossible. More and more research was being conducted, some by those who believe and some by those who sought to finally debunk the entire argument, but all of it was still considered pseudoscience. And likely always would be. But a perfect result—again hypothesized—was the full reveal of an otherworldly silhouette. To date, no one had captured a full outline or even minute details therein. In fact, it was more likely for someone to be struck by lightning or win the lottery a few times than it was to attain what we called a Category Zero Proof, meaning there'd be zero requirement to speculate or try to justify anything about the integrity of such an image—it'd just be solid proof.

Statistically speaking, however, it was in and of itself a ghost chase. Most people would categorically reject the notion of a spirit world outright. Even if we had something concrete to provide as evidence, our undertakings were almost always laughable.

But it never hurt to try.

"Do you think she was the one causing all the racket here?"

"No, don't think so." Eve replied. "She doesn't seem like the kinda gal that would put up a fit over much. She's too proper."

"So it's some other entity."

"Yep."

"So do we stick around and keep investigating? Stake the place out a bit more?"

She glanced sidelong at me. "Are you kidding?"

"No, I was serious. Why?"

Again, looking directly at me, she took me to task in her typical, scathing manner. "Why would you suggest that, Jake?"

Then again, she was the expert, not me.

"I don't know, I'm just putting myself in their shoes. Maybe they'd like to know who it was causing this. Have some closure."

"These people just tied the knot. Let's not invade their lives anymore than these Bits have."

"Well, we could do it from a guest room, or even from outside in the car. We could justify a price hike for extra services. You did say that this visit was just a consultation, right?"

"Jake, my time ain't free. I charge by the hour. They can't afford me, much less the both of us. I think we're done here. Let's go tell the owners."

And speaking of which, the husband and wife were aptly waiting for us at the foyer. No sooner had Eve propped open the door, they were situated a few paces away already facing us, clutching one another in an embrace of mutual trepidation.

"So?" The wife said. "Anything?"

"You definitely have some activity happening and I don't think it will stop any time soon."

"So what's the next step and how much will it cost?"

"Won't cost you one more credit because there is no next step."

"What of our home? We just moved in."

"Unless you can tough out the noises, best bet is to find a new place to live."

That was when the husband stepped forth. "So, that's it? You're done here?"

He was the most unsettled of the two and was starting to show it. There was no telling how much these occurrences cut into his personal life.

"I thought you people chant them away or cast a spell or something."

"No, that's just in the movies." Eve replied candidly. "We have no power over them. They do whatever they want."

And that was how jobs sometimes ended. Sad for people just trying to make a home for their family, but then again it was repeat business for us. The home would eventually sell on the market. They dared not mention the true reason: that fitful spirits were residing in the home they just vacated. Lest they desired ridicule and tarnished reputations. So, new tenants would move in and sooner or later we'd get the call and get paid again. Rinse and repeat. Our bread and butter. An under-the-table business. No taxes. No e-trail. Static-free.

The ones chained up inside of mental wards were the ones running away from—and not understanding—their Sight. We were literally banking on our gift day by day.

Jim Morrison once said:

Expose yourself to your deepest fear. After that, fear has no power and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.

Eve unlimbered her tablet and added the house's address to her e-log so we could one day reference it as some place we'd already worked. The problem would inevitably resurface some day. All we had to do was let our services be discoverable for the structure's next occupants.

With money and necessities in short supply, we had little to eat later that night. Less leisure and fun to be had lately. We needed that job like a fading soldier needed morphine. And we'd been seeing more of each other in our own pastimes. If our economic outlook deteriorated much more, Eve might be put into the awkward position of asking me to vacate and strike out on my own. Wasn't a particularly terrifying prospect for me; I'd done it before. I'd only recently started to regain contact with my family once money was good and I could afford connectivity again. That she'd given me a skill was charitable, to say the least, and more than I could ever ask of her. There'd be no bitterness toward her if she had to make the decision for us both.

After the meal, we both decided to walk out to the fields and shake off the miasma smothering our spirits lately. Atop an old, abandoned vehicle we sat, our backs to its windshield, looking up to the heavens. At least the night sky was clear and unpolluted, the only clarity to be had at present. The future was clouded with doubt.

"You ever wonder what's out there?"

"What do you mean? Thinking of being an Outie, Jake?"

"No. Well, maybe. I don't know. Sometimes, I wonder if humans are the only ones allowed to have ghosts."

"What, like Covenant?"

"I can't help but wonder if other life has its sprits too. I'd hate to think not."

"It would make humans unique for once." She said.

"Or make the universe incredibly boring."

Eve got a chuckle out of that. The first time in a long time I'd seen her smile like this.

"So," I said, trying to get comfortable atop the cold, hard windshield, "do you think science will ever find the answers?"

We were no scientists, but we kept our ears to the ground. She had friends who fancied themselves as technologists, at least within our odd confines.

"Well," she fished her pockets for a cigarette, "probably not any time soon. The scientific community is very materialistic. If you can't see it and you can't measure it, it doesn't exist."

"What about religions? I mean, they all speak of hereafters. They've got to be on our side at least to _some _degree."

She scoffed at me through a puff of smoke. "Religion's just like science. It likes to rely on everything that's already occurred. If your grandfather believed something, then naturally you want to believe it too. If the scientists who came before you want to believe something, then you're expected to believe in it. Otherwise, the options for those who deviate can be very scary. You know this."

"What about that Wolfenstein thing you went on about last month? Any updates on that?"

Again, she smirked. "That theory is old."

"Well, the older the better, right? Hasn't been debunked yet."

"Ah, yes, Jake." She sat up, placed hands on her hips and said, "The Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein Effect."

She then glanced sidelong at me with that snicker of hers, the one that sought to knock me down a peg or two. Snickering at me like girls would do to a boy at a schoolhouse recess, chasing after some stupid ball for some stupid reason. Pointing and laughing under their breath. Eve muttered the words almost grandly, though I could easily sense her sarcasm. I tolerated it. What else could I do?

"They have top experts working on it 'round the clock." She added mockingly.

I hadn't taken kindly to her antagonism and quick wit toward me at first, but I had gotten used to it, developed a second skin just for her. As time went on and we worked more jobs together, I came around to her sense of humor which was snarky to say the least. For me, anyway, all the science pointed to the Neutrino. The subatomic particle common to everyday life. A near-massless thing, it travels at close to the speed of light and is somehow able to pass through ordinary matter almost undisturbed. Difficult to detect except with the most sophisticated of sensory arrays, but it was established long ago that more than 50-Trillion Neutrinos originating from our own sun nevertheless pass through a human body every second, journeying clear to the other side of Earth and beyond mostly unabated. It wasn't until Neutrinos oscillated in electrical charge that they were easily detectable by more accessible instruments. Those particles changed 'flavors' like this in certain circumstances—the kind of circumstances we were hopeful to see in our time.

Eve was the one who enlightened me to all this theory, and was just another feather in her cap when it came to degrading me with her superior intellect in these matters. Maybe that was the only point it served these days. Surely that she was a decade older than me gave her the edge. But why was it that strange quirks registered in photographs? Why were there unexplained anomalies and why were they left unexplained? Why weren't there more people investigating? What caused pinpricks of light to materialize on photodetectors when in some cases the detection occurred in dark confines with no reflective surfaces and no light sources? Could it be true that the elusive Neutrinos also interacted with matter belonging to things truly unseen? Was the bridge between the multitude of dimensions the Neutrinos themselves? Like miniscule entwining of the planes that resulted in the occasional fright-night for Dim-Wits?

What about people like me and Eve? We both knew long ago that neither of us was crazy, just different. Especially when we found each other. So, what was it that made our perception vastly different?

These were the questions yet to be answered. Until then, there'd be no belief in people like us except of that coming from the so-called cranks and weirdoes and fringe groups. It would drive you nuts if you let it, but you just had to keep busy. Keep making money off it, hope to be vindicated by a miracle one day.

"Changing the subject…" she hinted at me with a slight irritation in her voice. She then extended her cigarette tin toward me, the first offer of such, which I quickly declined.

There was utter silence as the stars glimmered above. The night sky was very clear. I could see satellites slowly arcing in and out of sight from one horizon to another.

"So," I asked Eve, taking a deep breath while looking straight up, "what was your first time?"

"My first encounter?"

"Yeah."

"No one's ever asked me that before." She glanced at me.

"First time for everything, right?"

She took a deep drag of her cigarette and exhaled. "I think I was eight. It was an old lady. An Oblivious."

"What happened? How did you know she was a ghost?"

"She asked me if I knew the way to the Emory Theater. I said to the lady that the Emory was demolished the week prior. It got infested with Dakrats. It was a small town and everyone knew everything about it, so I thought she was one of those people that had dementia. I asked her where her husband was. She said he didn't make it through the last winter. I asked her who takes care of her. She looked at me like I was crazy. A day later I found her obituary in an e-paper that was nine days old."

"You had it easy."

"What was your first?" Eve then sat up to look directly at me. We were no longer star gazing.

"I was five. I wasn't even old enough to start school. Still playing with toys and doing everything my parents told me to do. The Ghost would just wander in and out of my room. I thought it was normal. I'd draw pictures of the man who I thought was part of the family. This went on for three years unnoticed. It was weird that it never talked to me, but I didn't know any better. One day at my first year of school, the teacher asked me who was in my drawings and I said I didn't know his name or even who he was. This gave the school some kind of red flag. Then one day when my parents showed up at the principal's office and we all sat down…and I just remember everyone in the room looking at me for a long period of time while I was asked to draw more pictures. Then one day I stopped going to school. Subjects were taught at home. When I got a little older, I started to realize I was way different than anyone else. Saw my first ghost movie, I forget what it was called. That's when I realized I'd been living with a ghost and no one would believe me. I knew I'd be alone for the rest of my life, but it didn't bother me either because I knew I was _born_ with Sight. Just kept it to myself through the years. Then I met you."

Eve smiled compassionately. A rarity.

More silence following our brief moment, then she broke the news.

"I found work at Byzantium."

She dropped it on me in one fell swoop, right out of the blue. Better that way, I guess. Besides, I knew it was coming. Just didn't think it would be this soon. Did that mean I was ready in her opinion?

"I have enough cred to get me there," she continued, "and you're welcome to come along if you want."

"Well, thanks, Eve."

"So, would you want to go? The clients I have lined up aren't going to wait much longer. I stalled them as much as I could."

"Truthfully, I'd go with you, but I don't think I could make it that far with the money I have."

She chuckled a bit and asked, "What have you been spending all your money on when I'm not around then?"

"Well, you know I have my hobbies. They're not cheap."

"What are you going to do ten, twenty years from now, Jake? Can't keep living in the moment, you know. Who's gonna take care of you when you get old?"

"I guess I don't plan that far out."

"You should start."

"Ain't worried about it. This guy next to you is still a young buck with plenty of opportunity ahead of him and maybe one day I'll outshine you, score big, and then the student will become the teacher." I winked at her.

She snorted a laugh right at me.

"Fat chance, boy. Not with the kinda rookie mistake you pulled today."

"Yeah, well, it figures. You've got me so scatter-brained every time we go out. Jake, focus on this. Jake, focus on that. Jake, where's my coffee? Jake, how many seconds? Jake, where's my coffee?!"

Eve laughed again. A freebee from her given to me. I lashed out and it worked. She was human after all.

"True. I'll give you that one. Just training you the toughest way I know how. And you'll thank me. Some day you'll be good. Maybe as good as me. But don't ever think you'll get to the honey pot quicker than I will. Never forget I taught you everything you know, there, Bucko."

Of course, neither of us knew what the future held in store, so of course neither of us knew I'd end up proving her wrong.


	3. The Doom that Came to Durham

**The Doom that Came to Durham**

I'd gotten very good at my craft over the years, so good that it got me noticed by the right individual.

With a house and a vehicle paid for, I essentially had no obligations other than filling my stomach and keeping the lights on. Things were good. A lot of hard work, of course, but I knew there'd be no prosperity of the kind I'd dreamt without significant risk taking. Especially living under Eve's wing my whole life. It all paid off, her belief in me and my perseverance. I was secure and content, on my own and succeeding. Even though the days were more lonesome than I was accustomed to, the amount of work I found kept the doldrums at bay. Sometimes I caught myself thinking about her, the way she'd scold me in my errors. These days, I used the sting of her voice to prevent those same mistakes. I hadn't spoken to her since she left Earth. I assumed she'd fared much better than me by now.

I had just finished a month-long liberation of an entire neighborhood. The houses were much larger and better built than my own, which meant they were expensive and their owners rich. Rich, influential, connected. Presently, I was exhausted. The amount of research I'd conducted—both interacting with the subjects themselves and my all my time logging onto information repositories—was a huge undertaking and made me a borderline insomniac by the time the project was halfway complete. Then came more interaction. I had to convince them that they'd all died more than six centuries ago and that they were living in the past. But now they were free to roam anywhere. They didn't have to be stuck here. They were themselves liberated.

All this filled up quite a significant capacity in the non-volatile reference log of my brand-new tablet. I looked around and was delighted once again to be surrounded by the comforts of home. With the recent payday, I'd pick up the latest generation Xbox and the games I had long waited to experience, maybe some exotic beers, essentially anything I wanted now that times were good. Right as I saved the latest entries one last time, a knock at the door came.

I opened it to see a suit-dressed man there with mirrored sunglasses.

Had I attracted too much attention?

"Hello, Jake."

"Hello." I replied as I studied my visitor. He was lean and stiff-bodied, coming off as a figure of official importance, and I knew right then and there that my life was about to change. "Who are you and how do you know my name?"

Such a crafty response.

He then removed the shades and smiled. "You did some recent work in Durham. My house was one of the many that you cleared."

"So, you're a believer?"

"Can I come in and speak with you?"

"Sure, I suppose. Did you have any follow-up questions?"

"No, it all seems complete. First, I want to say how impressed I am. When someone in the home owners' association suggested a ghost chaser, well, you can imagine my first instinct on that."

"Don't have to imagine, but thank you, sir. Glad to know it all worked out. Don't go advertising me, though, for your own sake. People will think you're crazy."

"No, I get it. I understand you keep a low profile. Low enough to avoid criticism, but not so low as to hinder your business. It's a balancing act."

"Yes, it is."

"Truthfully, I haven't come to be a believer myself solely as a result of your work."

"You've dealt with others like me?"

"No, but I've received reports of unusual activity at one of my classified military posts. I quickly dismissed them until you happened."

"You're UNSC?"

"Colonel Crowley."

"Thank you for your service, sir. So…what kind of unusual activity?"

"The kind of stuff that falls under your purview, I'd imagine." He grinned, then the smile quickly vanished. "We had a Marine go missing. When the first search party came back, the things they were saying landed each of them psych evals and I tried to distance myself from it as much as possible. Case is still unsolved and the MIA's family is getting very vocal about his disappearance."

"Ghosts, you're saying?"

"Not just any ghosts." The Colonel paced to the center of the room and then stopped in the middle. "Covenant ghosts."

I nearly lost my balance as he leveled his hard gaze directly at me.

"You are certain of this?"

"Fairly. All their stories corroborate one another's perfectly, and they wouldn't have had enough time to craft something that elaborate with the amount of time they had on the mission clock. Going forward, someone like you represents a valid option for me to consider now that you've established yourself. I'm willing to go out on a limb in order to at least give the family some sort of closure if we're looking at a worst case scenario. And I've considered the options carefully. Ultimately, I can't know for sure what's happening out there unless I have an expert on the ground, which is really why I came here today."

"The UNSC is asking for my assistance?"

He winced, "Sort of."

"You must be an adept risk taker or you really _do_ believe. Well, as honored as I'd be to go, I've got clients lined up all across the island."

"Tell them you're going on vacation and you'll be back soon enough. This place is actually not that far away. Maybe a week by the slipstream. You'll be back before you know it. And you will be compensated handsomely for your troubles. That's putting it lightly."

"I'm sure I would be, Colonel, but my list here is a bit long. I've made commitments to people. People that I'd like to get paid from as well."

"You'd pass up this unique breakthrough and more than a few years' wages for busy work?"

I nearly lost composure again. As I understood him, what this man was offering was tantamount to early retirement, not to mention one of the greatest discoveries someone like me could aspire to be a part of. And I'd be the sole discoverer. I would be immortalized in history.

"Look, I'd be wasting my own time if I tried to hunt down another person of your ilk and proficiency. Just think of what this could lead to. You could step out of the shadows, for one."

It was right then that I thought of Eve.

She'd go. She'd love to go. She'd _die _to go. And she was the ideal expert. Or was she?

I'd gotten good. Maybe a bit of luck had something to do with it, but I'd garnered the attention of a Colonel in the UNSC. Had she attained status like this by now? I'd doubted that. I doubted that even of her.

I then wondered how Eve was holding up these days, if she was making it okay. We hadn't communicated in two years. I could feasibly look her up if I put my mind to it. People could be found with ease these days if they wanted to be. She wasn't exactly a social butterfly, but she wasn't trying to sequester herself from the galaxy either. She was unquestionably like me: just inaccessible enough so as to make a living and hopefully experience somewhat of a normal life with someone that could understand her.

"Okay, so give me details. How did you come to the conclusion that _Covenant _ghosts are plaguing one of your camps?"

"Reports from troops stationed there, mostly. After enough grief from some of them, I decided to check it out the reports myself."

"And? You determined they weren't crazy?"

I fell silent, realized just then what I sounded like in my questioning.

I came off as a non-believer myself. After all this time seeing and believing and taking jobs all throughout my life, I was already an instant skeptic. I held back any further commentary, realizing what a potential customer would think, and I let the man speak further.

"I can see your uncertainty, but surely a good part of you wants to know for yourself. Would I be overstating?"

"No. No, sir, I guess not."

"So, how soon can you be ready?"

And that's how it started. The best and worst decision of my natural life.

"How many people are involved in this?"

"Well, I've got to go solo on this project, so really just a handful. It's unsanctioned. I'm sure you understand why. No one but you and me and a small squad of troops will know about this. Which means there's no funds officially approved for it. But I need the best, which is you. Everything's taken care of in advance. The accommodations will be _quite _generous as well as the afore-mentioned pay. You get half now and half when you're through. And we'll be going in with the finest gear. Just the kind of equipment you need to put all debates to rest." He grinned devilishly. "Consider that an added bonus."

"So, you've researched this field a bit, I see."

"If we get lucky enough, you can feel free to go after your Zero Proof, but be advised we'd be essentially stow-aways en route to a location that is considered a hazardous militarized zone."

"But you can guarantee safety nets for a civilian like me."

"Yes. You'll be protected. Now, there's a frigate scheduled to head out that way on a diplomatic support mission. There's space available for all of us, but we need to keep a low profile. I've got you a cover story that you'll need to memorize in case any authority questions you."

"What about you?"

"No one's going to question a Colonel. For all they know I'm a suit leading a bunch of spec-ops commandos to the front. Storm Covenant and Brute factions are still nuisances these days. Heads of state require protection. You're just my tech geek along for the ride."

"And your so-called troops? Are they real troops?"

"Yes, they're active duty."

"How'd you get them to come along?"

"These were the Marines assigned to the original search party."

"Oh, I see."

"And when I told them they'd get a chance to get back to the Ring and find their brother, they stood-to."

"Ring?! You mean—"

"—Yes, Jake. We're going there. We're going to Halo."

"Okay…I need to make a suggestion."

"Sure. What is it?"

"I know someone that should come with us."


	4. Killing Your Name

_**Killing Your Name**_

A week later, I had everything packed. I was ready. Just waiting on the call.

I got another visit instead.

I opened the door to again see the Colonel standing there. Something seemed strange to me then. Would a Colonel have the time to be moving around so covertly this often? Was someone this high in the military food chain even allowed to move around so freely unnoticed by superiors or peers? Wouldn't a small entourage be at his side at least for personal protection? Then again, this was all hushed. His personal black-op. The man was likely eating into his own vacation time to pursue this. I then realized the entire show hinged on me. He was brief and exact this time around.

"I found your old colleague. She's at Byzantium."

"Wow, that was fast."

"She was easy to find."

"She must be doing well. She left Earth for Byzantium a few years ago."

"Yes, and I have her contact information. Think you could give her a call today? We're on a timetable. Next chance to do this might be three months from now when the rotator vessel makes its quarterly journey. Our window is two weeks to be underway. That would give us less than that to scoop her up and catch the bird to Halo."

Halo. The Ring. Just hearing the word made all my hairs stand.

"Yeah, no problem. Actually, I've been anxious to get this underway."

"Good. The sooner, the better. All the information will be uploaded to your tablet. I hope you are a smooth talker. Let me know if she can't be convinced within a day. Otherwise, it'll be just you. Timetable is tight. See you later. Rest up well."

"Don't worry," I replied back as he made for his vehicle, "I know Eve. She won't take much convincing for this."

* * *

><p>"I thought about just going without inviting you, but I'm better than that and I miss your witty banter anyways. Be fore-warned, though, I'm somewhat of a savant these days."<p>

"Yeah? What's your count? How many have you liberated?"

"Still stuck on humans, I see. Well, I don't bother with the semantics anymore these days, Eve."

There was a moment of silence.

"Jake, what's the reason for this call? Are you truly onto a big score? I'm not going to leave my home without good reason."

"The biggest. The mother lode. Could be a Zero we're looking at."

"What? Where at?"

"Can't say over the phone. You just need to be at a starport one week from now. Sending the coordinates to you over the data channel."

"You didn't find this by yourself, did you? No, you couldn't have. Who tipped you off to this?"

"A Colonel in the UNSC."

"A _Colonel?"_

Genuine surprise in her voice and I reveled in it.

"Yeah, nice guy. You'll meet him. And he's got all the stops pulled out for us. If you want in on this, that is. _Do you_ want in on this?"

"Jake…you'd better not be bullshitting me." She tried to force a steady tone, but I could hear the adrenaline wavering in and out of her voice. "Okay, look, no more small talk…I'll be there. Don't you leave without me, Bucko."

At that, the connection ended. Eve was on-board. I never thought I'd ever see her again, but it seemed she'd share in my fate. My instinct was still sharp. Convincing her was easy.

And now I had real reasons to be excited again.

* * *

><p>The Colonel wasn't leading me on or even overstating—my living quarters were tremendous. It's what I'd imagined a high-ranking officer's experience to be or that of one of their distinguished guests. Compared to every other area of the ship I'd seen, this amount of space and comfort was like an alternate reality I'd stepped into from the moment I entered through the doorway. It seemed almost criminal to enjoy it. It was obvious Crowley had pull.<p>

With more than one-hundred square meters all to myself, I was easily able to relax here, and after the better part of a week passed by I became more than a little stir-crazy. I wasn't used to this slowed pace. I had always been on the go and the only time I got to relax in my younger years was when I was staking out a place with Eve, and even then you had to be watchful. The present tense was a total reversal. The amenities of my area and the rest that the _Springfield _had to offer had been experienced in full and could no longer adequately pass the time. I'd chatted with the Colonel over meals, told him all about my work, about Eve, almost everything about my life. Now, all I could think about was this new discovery awaiting us. Thankfully, this day we'd welcome her aboard and be underway soon enough.

And just as times before, the knock came.

Upon greeting my visitor, the words came instantly as I opened the door.

"She's here."

The Colonel was garbed in full military service dress, the first time I'd seen him in this uniform. The coat was like a solid sheet of fabric, appearing rigid over the wearer and painted with rows of ribbons atop the left breast plate. The man had seen and done a great number of things, I'd imagined. He appeared regal in that attire, as I imagined all others of his service did. And I could see in his eyes that he knew what I was thinking.

"How long has it been since you two saw each other?"

"Couple years."

"Well, c'mon. She's waiting at the reception deck. We'll speed her through and to her quarters. She's probably dead tired."

* * *

><p>There she was. She hadn't changed one bit.<p>

Our eyes met across the expansive flight deck through the criss-crossing of careening objects and people. Crowley halted me with an outstretched arm as a line of dollies laden with fuel bladders sped by. Mech chasses hauling cargo and equipment thudded the deck around us while technicians tended to external interface ports on a few parked vessels.

"Hello, Eve."

She gave me a sly smirk, glimpsing me up and down. "Jake, Jake, Jake, what have you gotten yourself into now."

Her demeanor was unlike anything I'd seen before in the years prior. She was beaming, though I knew she was suppressing the urge to shower me with affection like a long-lost friend would do. Then, she lunged forth and gave me a hug.

"How was your trip?"

She shrugged, "Not bad. Accommodations were acceptable. I suppose I have this gentleman to thank for it?"

"Colonel Crowley." They shook hands. "Your reputation precedes you, Eve."

She glanced at me again with a smirk.

"Well, it should." She said. "And don't let this guy fool you, sir, I taught him everything he knows."

"Two experts." Crowley offered a smile. "Twice the bounty, then. I like it. Welcome aboard the _Springfield. _I've got you all set up. Let me take your bags. You're probably ready to crash, or will be ready once you relax and get some food."

I saw them off with a wave, content to linger there as I thought about our future undertakings. As Eve got settled ahead of the week-long journey, I wondered what to do with myself. I had more energy than usual, more than I knew what to do with. A visit to the ship's gymnasium was in order to burn it off. At some point en route to the Ring, I'd think ahead for once. I wouldn't be forced to stay caught up in the present, worrying about bills and obligations and about how I'd win my next meal. It wouldn't be like times before, the floundering and crawling and barely scraping by. This time, I'd have it all figured out, the biggest achievement of my lifetime within reach. Within our reach.

A few days later and some journal entries, I walked the ship's corridors for some change of scenery. I heard a chime and reached for the tablet in my pocket—a message from Eve.

**Want to share dinner together?**

**Yeah, meet you at the officer's mess.**

* * *

><p>"Where's home these days?" Eve asked between bites.<p>

"Stoke-on-Trent."

"Jake, seriously?"

"It might not be classy, but it's close to a lot of activity. Last month I saw thirty Oblivious men that died in a mining explosion in Durham a few centuries ago. And there's so much more. I left a _huge_ customer base behind for this."

"Never struck out to anywhere else? Arkham?"

"Nah, never did make it to Arkham, but I guess by you moving on you left all the spoils of Earth to me. But you…you must be doing well. You haven't left Byzantium."

"Well, no, I went a couple other places. Didn't pan out so well. Was forced to double back to Byzantium and wound up tied down there. The house I bought was my ball-and-chain. Some family was able to help me along in the hard times. Never thought I'd be able to get to another place again until this. So, how _did_ you come across this? I really want to know."

"Luck, really. Right place, right time. Liberated a property that belonged to Crowley. It was just my destiny, I guess."

She swiftly reached across the table and grabbed at my hand, clutching it firmly. "Mine too. Ours. It's so good to see you again, Jake."

"It's good to see you too, Eve."

"I never thought either of us would live this day."

"And here we are. Together, no less." I smiled at her.

"It's tremendous what you did. I'm thankful for this. Really."

"Well, I was taught by the best. At least that's what you keep saying."

She smiled back.

"We may've finally found it, Eve."

"Well, no matter what happens, it was worth the wait."

"True."

"So," she said, speaking almost as low as a whisper, "we've got a lot of time to kill. Want to spend the night in my room?"

* * *

><p>"I hope you got some good sleep. It's going to be sensory overload today."<p>

Crowley paced briskly down the _Springfield's _main artery, the very wide corridor serving multiple streams of bi-directional pedestrian traffic.

We followed closely behind him. I hadn't seen this section before, used mainly by the line workers and permanent residents who took part in the ship's essential functions. Various junior officers and enlisted personnel scurried to and fro throughout the ship, using this thoroughfare as the speediest leg of their journey. I felt like some sort of bull's-eye in my civilian clothing, but once I spotted more civilians among the rank and file, I felt more blended in with the populace. Though not quite shoulder-to-shoulder constriction, the movements inside this sector were clearly hustle and bustle. Those meandering in their off-duty time or not actively engaged in priorities chose the outermost fringes where a slower pace was desirable. Some spoke into communicators as they strolled there on the edge. Amidships, the walls tapered inward, the hard surfaces now replaced by meter-thick plexi-plate offering spectacular views outside the hull. There it was…

Halo.

Eve and I stopped mid-stride. It was wondrous, beautiful. I thought I'd strayed into a dream as I never thought I'd see firsthand the lore that was riddled in our tumultuous past of the Great War.

But here we were.

The outer diameter of its surface was a tiled mosaic, clearly manufactured by some intelligent design. The inner part, well, it was breathtaking. To look upon it felt like home.

Crowley glanced back, stopped and smiled at us. "Take it in, but believe me the view down below is just as good. Let's hurry along."

The launch bay of the _Springfield _was once again an ordered chaos. Like a symphony, the various moving parts of the greater machine complemented one another and never clashed. In orderly lanes, traffic moved, whether human or machine. The crewman had everything down to an art just as much as the robots had everything down to their science. That the crewmen were smiling while doing it meant that there was no foreseeable deterrent to their success as a team. Our presence hadn't taken anything out of sync. Crew worked around us, even greeted us and offered to show us around or fetch coffee as we waited to be cleared for flight.

Of course, we required nothing for ourselves. Today was the day we'd make discoveries and history. That was filling enough.

Crowley was all business at this point, leading us straight to a UNSC Pelican dropship once we got thumbs up from a pair of crew chiefs.

I glanced at Eve and instantly she glanced back with a sly smile that seemed to resemble that same sort of seductive glare given to me the night before. I grinned back and she winked at me.

"Ever ride in one of these?" Crowley asked as we halted before the dropship's lowered tail ramp.

"No, sir." I said, assuming the same for Eve.

He nodded and stepped aboard the empty vessel, giving brief inspection of its innards. While consulting a data tablet, he nodded and murmured something to himself.

"Where are the Marines, sir? You said there'd be Marines."

"Marines?" Eve reared back. "There's Marines involved? What's going on?"

The Colonel brushed by both of us and proceeded directly toward the cockpit's open canopy, preoccupied as he replied, "They scouted ahead to secure the perimeter prior to you going in."

"Is it…not safe?" Eve asked with some uncertainty in her voice.

"It sure is now. We have quite an experienced fire team on the ground." Crowley answered with a grunt that signaled satisfaction. Not a hint of worry for him.

"Do you expect any trouble, Colonel?"

"Nothing on the horizon, Eve, but remember this is Halo. The wild frontier, some still consider, and we're poking around uninvited and unaided. Remember, this ground op is not on the UNSC's books."

"If someone finds out what we're really doing here, will we—"

"—Let's not kid ourselves. The UNSC has two agendas, one overt and one covert. Furthermore, let's just say this falls under neither, which means we're literally laying our own necks on both sides of the Human-Covenant coin. But you shouldn't have to worry. I'm here to support you in your search. I've taken care to do more recon on this location than most others would even do for their own _combat_ ops. Just bear in mind that I'm your only ride out of this star system due to our profile. At touchdown, I'm going to remain with the ship and keep the engines hot in case we all need to bail out in a bind. Let me know when you're ready to come up for air, but the bottom line is that we need to be well underway before the mother ship decides to stretch her legs again. I'll be in constant contact with you via the Marines' comms. Oh, and the Marines will be sporting some pretty sophisticated ghost chasing gear. You'll see what I'm talking about when you link up with them. Be mindful of which way their apertures are pointing. It's some pretty high-intensity radiation coming out of those things and I wouldn't want either of you experiencing any injury on my watch."

Colonel Crowley jolted upright, leaned over the cowling, and rummaged through the cockpit, retrieving a container. He hinged it open in front of us. "They're universal translator earbuds. You'll want them. It makes Covenant understandable."

"Colonel, thanks for doing all this for us. I couldn't imagine all the planning and work you had to do, especially off the scopes and on your own credit. I know this is really all about that missing Marine, but everything you've done for us is most appreciated."

"You're welcome, Jake. I'm glad we could be mutually-beneficial. Well, we'd better mount up. Timetable is still tight. Diplomatic missions are their own animal and we're hanging off this _Springfield's_ coattails."

The three of us entered the dropship, the Colonel assuming the pilot's chair while me and Eve seated ourselves in the troop bay. We launched into the blackness of space and were soon to be landing on the ancient ringworld they called Halo.

* * *

><p>The wind and dust swirled around the Pelican as it began its final descent.<p>

It touched down with a gentle thud and within seconds we were free of our restraints. Glancing beyond the troop bay, through the fore windscreen, I could see the greenery. Only a small swath was visible through the diminutive view afforded to me, but already I could see it teeming with life and possibility. I hurriedly proceeded to the tail ramp and slammed the actuator control, tuning out the wheezing of the hydraulics and focusing intently on the sights and sounds of the Ring permeating my senses through the ever-widening portal. I breathed deep.

"Wow."

"The air's so clean, crisp." Eve said, stepping out into the light.

I simply took it in, the colored foothills stepping up to mountains on one horizon and leading down into riverbeds in another. The clear skies, warm light, cool air. This place was perfect. Was it always this way? Was the biosphere inside manufactured to the same degree as the outside? I hunched yes.

Crowley dismounted as the dropship's engines spooled down to idle, now almost quiet.

"The Marines are waiting for you..." he consulted his data tablet "…over that way." He pointed to a location that led to the base of a solid rock wall, maybe three to five-hundred meters toward a sinking sun. "You may have about two hours before sunset. I'd advise against sight-seeing at nightfall, so plan accordingly. At any rate, adhere to the Marines' instructions. They're here for your protection as well. If search efforts on both fronts turn up fruitless today, don't sweat it. You can fall back to the entrance, set up camp there, and head out again the following morning. The structure doesn't look like much from here, but believe me it's a labyrinth. Stick together and we can keep the search for people confined to just the missing Marine, if you get me. The NCOIC is to lead everyone back here to this landing zone before sunset tomorrow. This gives you a whole day for your hunt, which I feel is adequate given our window with the _Springfield_."

"Okay, understood." I replied.

One day. It wasn't much, but it was something.

As one, Eve and I set off toward that direction, taking in the scenery as we walked. I glanced rearward once and Crowley gave me a firm nod. The rock wall loomed ahead, sprawling to a one-hundred meter height at its summit where a manufactured pane of some function towered even higher. The closer we got, the less the wall appeared as a natural formation. It was clearly trapezoidal in shape and clearly engineered to be that way as its sharp edges and vertices and angles were exact in my view. Details of its surface held more clarity now, and the only word I could summon was _temple. _I could not begin to fathom the function of all the non-organic objects I could see both near and far. All I knew was that I was here and that only now the awe of it was starting to sink in. Eve was no doubt of the same mindset, herself gazing in every direction as we walked toward our ultimate destination.

Closer and closer, an entrance was directly ahead along with some Marines loitering there in a loose gaggle. Their grey-white digitized camouflaged uniforms blended in well with their surroundings, whatever of it was synthetic, anyway. As we came within a hundred meters, a leader acknowledged us with an encouraging onward wave and we quickened our pace slightly, not wanting them to wait or think us slack.

He held out a hand. "Staff Sergeant Armstrong. You're Eve and Jake."

The two of us nodded.

"Alright, we're here for two things. A person and some ghosts. My squad has the detection gear provided by the Colonel. It's continuously active, so it will always be sending and receiving wavelengths of your particular interest." He smirked at Eve. "No need for Polaroids."

"Guess the Colonel told you a little about me." She said, offering her own, characteristic smirk.

"Aye, ma'am."

Armstrong hand-signaled his unit to fan out into the yawning dark of the structure's high-vaulted mouth.

Together, we all passed through the threshold and light that was unseen from the outside was instantly illuminating almost everything inside. I'd assumed these men had encountered this phenomenon a few times before and so withheld all my questions and my giddiness and began to pay more attention to what the Marines themselves were doing, though I allowed myself some outward observation here and there. The walls were thick and blued and literally riddled with alien symbolism, and the ambience was still and silent. There was no activity, the ancient races that built these structures long passed according to our historical accounts.

"So, what happened?" I asked Armstrong, walking beside him.

"One of my Corporals said he left something in here following an escort detail we provided to a group of scientists. I let him go back in alone, said he'd be right back out. He never came back."

"I know this is difficult for you, Staff Sergeant, but if you don't mind me asking…what made you think ghosts?"

He gave me a sidelong glance, though I couldn't gauge what he was thinking when he did. He breathed deeply and hesitated as though he was gathering the right words to respond with. A moment later as we continued our inward march, he then said, "You'll know it when you hear it."

* * *

><p>The narrow corridor we traversed was a monotonous journey in itself, but everything changed when Armstrong at the point of our loose formation suddenly threw up a fist into the air. I'd seen the movies, so I knew it meant to halt. With a watchful eye aimed down toward the elbow ahead, he backpedaled and conferred with his subordinates, then relaxed a little as he motioned for me and Eve to join him.<p>

"What's going on? Trouble ahead?"

"Unsure. We've never scouted beyond this area. Just being cautious. You two would do well to keep watchful and silent."

At that, Armstrong retook the head of the formation. All Marines tightened up into a smaller arrangement and advanced more slowly, more cautiously, weapons at the low-ready position. The two Marines hefting the exotic gear switched their grips so that they could draw on pistols with their free hands. Our forward trek went on for another ten minutes and ended when Armstrong consulted a timepiece. Another halt signal and he waved us all back to proceed toward the way we came.

"Time's up for the day." He said. "We'll fall back and camp out. Tomorrow is a new day."

The entire walk back to the mouth of the structure was silent and dragged on and on. Once we reconvened there, the night's preparations were taken immediately. The Marines were efficient, wasting no time in capitalizing on what amount of rest they could seize. Small thermal rods were emplaced around the periphery of our padded sleeping bags that were left here before we set out. It was quickly agreed upon that they'd stand guard in shifts to which they levied no obligation of vigilance upon me and Eve.

"So," Eve said to me as she settled a sleeping spot just beside mine, "what did these guys experience anyway? Did Crowley ever tell you?"

"Just said they heard some things."

"So, then they're Dim-Wits. They can't see."

"Right."

As I laid down and looked up, there was nothing here that suggested anything of human origin. Nothing except for us and what we brought here. So, how was there any illumination in this space as the dark of night took hold outside? It seemed to me then that the walls themselves were radiant from within, somehow. Unable to fathom the full scope and grandeur of the world, I instead thought about the only thing I could with any surety: tomorrow. Maybe by some wild chance we'd get wildly lucky: our search would reveal one Marine and whatever it was Eve and I came for.

* * *

><p>The clamoring of the Marine collective awoke me.<p>

Perfectly calm they were, yet moving with utmost urgency. Almost everything they had was once again packed into their rucksacks. The unnecessary items like sleeping bags were again laid neatly about the atrium. Armstrong noticed me awake and said, "Whenever you're both ready, we'll head out."

"No breakfast?"

"We already ate."

"Damn, that was fast." I rolled over, stretched in place, and looked outside. It was still dark. "What time is it?"

"Zero-five-thirty local."

"When's sunrise? Or, whatever it's called here."

"Daylight will be in thirty minutes, tops."

"Why so early, Sarge?"

"Best to be ready while it's still dark out. That way, you're fully alert by the time the dawn comes around."

That actually sounded quite…tactical. I nodded and flung the fabric of the sleeping bag aside, rising slowly and collecting my things while still winking away the fog of sleep. Eve picked up on everything in a few minutes and she too rose soon after me. Within five minutes, we all set off again. We reached our farthest point of travel in less than twenty-five minutes, and now the Marines were once again on-edge, expecting the unexpected. Me and Eve were content to remain in the dead-center of the group, protected within that sphere.

Armstrong threw up a fist, the first non-verbal signal of the day.

There he remained for a few seconds as he studied the way ahead. Beyond the NCOIC's broad shoulders, I could see the body on the ground, the same camouflage pattern covering him. The form was curled up either at rest or surely dead. Armstrong let his fist fall slowly as he walked forth. Together we all neared it. Two of the troops rushed a few paces ahead with weapons drawn down the length of the hallway while Armstrong knelt down and rolled the motionless body over. The combat fatigues were charred right in the center of the abdomen.

"Died of plasma wounds."

Armstrong bit his lower lip and hung his head for a moment, then yanked the service tags off his fallen comrade's neck.

"Confiscated his weapon, too. No spent casings anywhere. Didn't even get a shot off. Must've caught him by surprise. Well, here's our worst case scenario. Alright, men, you know what to do. Let's get on with it."

Armstrong's Marines ditched their sensory gear, hoisted the corpse off the ground and began hauling it to the surface. The three of us remained there in silence. Eve and I glanced at one another as Armstrong thought for another moment.

"Hey, if you two want to continue, I'll escort you. We can at least have one happy ending today. Give me a moment to contact Crowley and let him know what's going on."

Armstrong withdrew to a spot against a wall a few meters distant as he accessed his short-wave radio, the only device capable of establishing a voice channel in such dense confines. The conversation was burdened with static interference but was still comprehensible.

"Sir, search concluded. We found him." He sighed. "KIA. Cause of death is Covenant energy weaponry. Time and date of death unknown. Suspect hostile Storm Faction. We're bringing him out now. Request permission to scout further for the paranormal activity."

There was a few seconds of silence.

"…Have you come across anything unusual so far, Staff Sergeant?"

"Negative, sir."

"Then there probably isn't anything left to find, Armstrong. Once you're through there, head back to the rendezvous point. I think we're done here. Crowley, out."

I saw a visible stirring in Eve. I too was a little reluctant to come to the end of it all despite how the situation changed. Safety was paramount, of course, but there had to be another way of salvaging the remainder of the Colonel's mission. Our mission.

"Hey, Staff Sergeant," I said, "Could you be good enough to give us just a few more minutes? We've already made it this far, and aside from this it's been pretty safe. And you've got weapons."

"I don't know, Jake, I'm sure the Colonel would advise against that now."

"Sounds to me like he gave you some leeway and discretion just then. Would you help us? I mean, you heard the activity, right? You were here when it happened. You believe."

Armstrong again considered the situation, biting his lower lip as before. "Fine with me, but we're not staying more than thirty minutes. Colonel won't like waiting around now that we've got a KIA on our hands. First sight of Covenant activity, we're gone. And I mean gone in a hurry."

"Okay, sounds good. Eve, you're on-board with that, right?"

She nodded.

Eve and I hoisted the gear and we resumed the trek further in, Armstrong candidly noting the directions in the path we were taking for there was more than one to choose from this deep inside the Forerunner structure. I could see how unsettled he was on an occasional glance rearward, unable to be with his fallen as the others sped him back to the rendezvous point.

Just then, I heard it, assumed it was what Armstrong had alluded to before. Strange voices, deep and guttural.

"Well, that was right on cue."

"I hear it." Eve said.

"Me too." Armstrong replied.

Up ahead, the narrow corridor that seemed to stretch on for kilometers suddenly opened into a vast antechamber. We neared the terminus and were presented with a hemispherical expanse that dwarfed me where I stood. Holograms emerged from within, seemingly out of nothing but the air itself, filling the entire volume just above our eyeline. Star systems. Hundreds of them. Various beacons of light and encircling planets and moons and accretion remnants, all fully mapped for an unknown amount of light-years across a swath of the galaxy. The models swirled and gyrated just as their real counterparts would in their orbits far beyond this world.

"A map room." Eve murmured.

Other movement caught my eyes at the far end, and I saw a lone Covenant Elite emerge from a corridor not unlike ours. It stepped into the full light of the chamber for maybe a couple seconds, then in a hurry it retreated to where it came from.

"Did you see that?"

"See what?" Eve asked, staring up and outward at the fantastic displays around us. Her eyes were filled with wonder and the reflections of the light.

I smirked at her. "Now look who's not paying attention."

No answer from her as she simply marveled at our surroundings.

"Well, what did you see?" She asked absentmindedly while still staring up.

At the present, I perceived no danger. Eve certainly didn't, engrossed by our environment. Armstrong was much like her at this point, simply in awe of what we encountered. Before I proceeded two steps into the voluminous chamber, seven Elites emerged from that distant corridor. Like primordial instinct that overrode my thinking, I grabbed a hold of them both and nudged them out of sight beyond the threshold we occupied. I ducked low and Eve and the Marine mirrored my move. Facing the 'star room', I glanced inward with only my eyes, careful to not reveal my presence. The earbuds began deciphering and amplifying a distant conversation in near-real-time as they came closer and halted in the center of the room.

"No, my brothers. For how many units of time have we debated this very subject?"

"It bears legitimacy, even in the eyes of the Prophets!"

"Neigh! Blasphemy! The Hierarchs would _never _hear your claims. And yet you utter them with impunity even as human filth infiltrates more of our worlds. I would have your head at the tip of my blade!"

"Conclusive they are, for many of us have witnessed it. The Prophets have forsaken us all, brother!"

"A bold claim requires bold evidence. Where lies the justification that beseeches you turning from us so errantly?

"Brother, the only testimony that can be offered is what has already happened beyond the sacred ring."

"Convenient to say as it is, brother, considering our only ship is tarnished beyond repair. Our bodies will fail before we can escape to witness your version of the truth, if what you say is correct."

I watched and listened. It was then that one of the Elites—while pacing to and fro in its deliberation—had one of its hands impart through another's body.

Instinctively, we returned to cover. I reeled Armstrong back to our position with a hand on his ruck. Of course he didn't know what we were looking at or what we just saw. He was a Dim-Wit. He might as well have been staring at a wall. Eve glanced at me with excitement in her eyes, but also with a morsel of fear. A fear that I understood. Despite the considerable distance separating the three of us from them, the intensity in their dialogue could be heard as well as felt. Clearly some sort of disagreement among their ranks. What was worse was that we were witnessing a group of Oblivious. They were obviously confused and angry. Their voices reverberated all about the chamber they resided, resounding violently into our ears.

"I think it's time we leave." Armstrong said firmly. "Unless of course you think the equipment hasn't sampled enough. Feel free to point your gadgets in that direction for a bit, but we have some distance between us and the LZ and we're cutting it close. I don't' want to put Colonel Crowley in a difficult position."

Eve's response was instant and without hesitation. "Agreed. Just a little bit more sampling and then we're off. We can always come back again, right?"

Armstrong gave a weak nod and leaned up against a wall.

We let the emitter and detectors go to work for a few minutes and the readings were collected on a small, embedded storage crystal within the detector. In minutes we had the entire chamber fully scanned with the backscatter of the high-intensity waves. There'd be no way we wouldn't have at least _something _to show for all this. As soon as we turned, we were met with the most terrible sight and I froze. An Elite was directly in our path a few meters ahead. Even from that distance, it towered over us, looking down upon us. When I made eye contact with it, it bared its teeth and growled lowly. I fumed with adrenaline, but then I stole some deep breaths and calmed myself. "Just like facing the original fear." I said to Eve.

She too hesitated for an instant. When she finally collected herself a few seconds later, she then grabbed at my hand, pulled me along behind her and paced directly toward the apparition on a course that would take us right through it and away toward the surface.

Armstrong remained where he was, though. "Am I seeing a ghost?" He asked. "Or, what?"

A spike of adrenaline again stammered me, this time much more intense. "Oh, no...Eve! Armstrong! Run!"

It was too late.

With one, swift motion, the beast in front of us activated its energy sword and lashed out toward her first. The realization was instant just like the pain she must've felt. It swiped at her mid-section and tore right through her. She instantly staggered and dropped. As it tracked her hard descent to the ground, I lunged at its arm—the one that held its melee weapon. My attempt at disarming it was futile. It was too quick and instantly backpedaled, easily overcoming my momentum along with producing a nearly identical swipe at my chest. The tip of the blade was all that penetrated, but that's all that was needed to deal the fatal blow to my fragile, human body. Armstrong opened fire in an instant, attempting to strafe the thing as he let the assault rifle tear into it. All the happened was an intense glow radiating outward as streams of hollow-point rounds struck and were subsequently vaporized before us. Shrugging off the full-auto barrage, it lunged and lopped off Armstrong's head. In an instant, the rifle clattered to the deck and all was silent.

It felt like all strength in me died in a fraction of a second, as if the sword sapped the energy right out of me. The burn was infinitely intense and my chest instantly tightened up. Breathing was burdensome. I knew my entire body was now lame as it crashed downward against my will.

* * *

><p>As we lay dying, taking our last breaths, I glanced down at my mortal wound. The skin around it was burnt, yet neatly cauterized, stinging like a thousand sunburns. Inside was worse. I could feel the fluids leaking out from whatever vital organs had been eviscerated. It wouldn't be long before my lungs or my stomach was drowned in my own blood. I glanced upon Eve again. She gasped shallowly. It wouldn't be long for her, too. That we'd been hunted down so quickly inevitably meant they'd give chase to the others making their way back. My only remaining obligation in life was to pray for their safe return.<p>

"Ever settle down with a woman?" Eve asked me, again out of the blue when it came to sentiments.

"No, never found the time. Might have if I didn't take this job."

"Truthfully, I'd be a little disappointed if you did."

"Why?"

"Because you were always _my_ student."

Her eyes locked onto mine for a moment, and for the first time in our very long courtship I didn't have a snappy response to counter with.

"Have any kids, Jake?"

"No."

"Any brothers? Sisters?"

"Nope, I'll be the last of my name."

"Me too." She said with a sigh.

I did my best to be of some consolation to her, recognizing her sorrow.

"Better to end it all here than on Earth, I suppose. At least we'll have a real place in the grand tale."

At that, I looked to the ceiling. The sight above was strange, yet amazing, the ornate inscriptions in alien languages telling their own stories unfathomably old. We'd be entombed here. Preserved. Hallowed.

Fair enough.

"I know." Eve muttered softly. She too was on her back, gazing straight upward like me now, side by side, just like that starry night on Earth so long ago. "It's beautiful. The whole thing is beautiful. I'm not sad it ends here. Actually, I feel like our life's work is complete. But now there's more questions. And we'll never answer them."

Her words seemed to echo off the ground and every other surface with a sense of finality, and upon that notion I could no longer feel my extremities. The lack of sensation was slowly starting to creep inward toward my core. This numbness was soothing in a way. There was hardly any pain remaining, and soon it'd be gone completely. My vision began to blur, my hearing dulled, immense lethargy setting in. I'd relived my memories. I had good company in the end. My mind was at ease and my body was prepared to let slip its grip over this reality.

It would only be a few more moments, then nothing.

Most people feared death. They couldn't see, therefore they couldn't know. It's not the end of all things, of course. It's only the end of this thing. Neither of us were afraid as we stole our last few seconds.

"Just beautiful and amazing…" She continued, trailing off into silence.

"Makes you wonder who built it." I said. I could feel my own contentedness fully setting in.

"You fool," she spat with droplets of blood, "you still don't pay attention."

Her comment was like one last spike of adrenaline, an infusion of her banter that suddenly woke me. "Huh?"

"I wasn't talking about this place. I was talking about the Elites."

"What do you mean?"

"The Elites, Jake…" Eve struggled through a slight bout of coughing, then regained her breath a few seconds later. "…They can see too."

**-THE END-**


End file.
